Which statement best expresses the theme of the text MOVING HOME
by Heidi Stemple
have no stories of family drama in my childhood. My parents were hippies and we lived with a barn-full of artisans
who created the most amazing silver, leather, and pottery items. My younger brothers and I had fields to explore and a pool tucked behind one of the barns. We had our own pottery wheels and the potters baked our pots in the kiln
with theirs. My mom was a writer and my dad a professor who loved birds. I grew up and moved away.

My family was different. Not bad, but different. My children are twelve years apart, and we lived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on a cul-de-sac
next to our best friends, the Napiers.

Everything was fine until crisis struck. Back at home, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, there was too much distance between my family and my parents.

I called my brothers — both equally far away. Someone needed to go home. I wanted it to be me. Both my brothers agreed that they were not able to pack up and relocate and loved the idea that I was willing — and ready — to do so. My husband agreed. Then we needed to talk to our daughters. They were reluctant of course. They didn’t want to leave their home.

So, as a family, we sat down to write a pros-and-cons list of moving. At first, the list was hard to figure out. I knew what my kids would gain by moving — their grandparents, full-time. Plus a hometown on a farm, surrounded by family and art and education. But my kids were dubious.
All they could add to the list weighted the con side.

For a week, we worked on that list. As the days went by, the cons all got crossed out, replaced by counterparts on the pro side. Changing schools, for example, had originally begun as a con, but as we talked it out, it started to look like an adventure. Leaving the beach, which we would miss, but rarely went to anyway, got turned into mountains and changing seasons. Pro, pro. In the end, nothing on the con side survived except leaving the Napiers. But Nana and Papa outweighed everything else.

As we packed up and moved — my youngest and me first, then my elder daughter, then my husband with all our belongings in a big truck, we knew that it was family that was bringing us home, and the decision was right because we had made it as a family. No stories, especially true ones, have a perfect happily-ever-after. Though this story ends well, we do still miss the Napiers.